Seven Sins
by Vash The Humanoid Sunshower
Summary: Vignettes follow Starbuck through the series. New parts: On Lust & On Gluttony. "Leoben's baking brings tears to my eyes. He looks over the oven and gives me a lover's smile. I hide the knife. If I am lucky, I'll be able to kill him before dessert."
1. On Sloth

**Seven Sins:**

**Authors Note:** Looks like I've set myself up for a seven part series of drabble. So far, it's Starbuck's story, but if the reason is compelling enough, that may be subject to change.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Battlestar. I don't own much of anything. Just playing with the characters for a while.

**#1: On Lies **(takes place during _HOME part 2_)

I hurt every time I get in the cockpit. My fingers. Damned knee. Now it'll be this frakkin' hole in my gut. I remember the first time I squeezed my fingers around a Viper's controls, back in the academy. Sharp pain shot through my right hand so hard, it felt like the hammer had come back down and smashed it again. You carry all of your wounds into the cockpit. The pilots who think they don't are the ones who don't make it home.

"Ready for Kobol?" Lee says with an uncertain smile. First the bastard tells me he loves me. Now his gaze glances over me as though I'm made of glass, and if he stares too long, he may be cut to pieces.

I can't deal with this. Lee Adama is my best friend. He's not supposed to kiss me and tell me he loves me. Even if he doesn't do both of them at the same time.

I force a smile, throw out a jaunty salute and say, "Another planet packed full of Cylons who want to kill me. Can't wait."

Apollo laughs. "It's not personal."

_"Did someone break your fingers?" The toaster's brown eyes were too interested, his compassion too sharp. _

_"Get out." My eyes filled with tears. _

This is personal. I'm not thinking about that. I told myself I wasn't thinking about that. "Frakking Cylons." I whisper. I frakking hate it when I cry.

Lee raises an eyebrow. "Starbuck?"

"I've got the window." I push past him into the transport. Don't look back. Never look back. Put the pain behind you and keep moving. Keep flying, Starbuck. There's pain there too, but that moment, when the thrusters kick in, shoving you like a fireball through the empty heart of space, that moment the Viper becomes a part of you and you know you're really free.

I wish I was flying this bucket.

It's a short ride down to the planet, and a long time tramping through mud and rain.

We find Earth. Or at least the path to it. It's path paved with the dead, but what else is new? Our fleet is whole, all if forgiven, and now we have hope.

Lee told me he loves me. Adama told us he'd lead us to Earth. Roslin told me nothing else mattered but that dream. I told Anders I'd be back for him.

Which of us is telling the truth?


	2. On Pride

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Battlestar. I don't own much of anything. Just playing with the characters for a while.

**#2: On Pride** (Takes place during _Lay Down Your Burdens 2_)

I told Anders I'd be back for him. I promised him I'd rescue him from hell. The problem with hell is there's more than one. Hell stretches out in infinite options. Hell of needles. Hell of memories. Hell of Cylons. Hell of humans. It's all hell. Sometimes I wonder if we really leave hell at all, or maybe we just pick one and hunker down and fight like the frakkin' devil should anyone try and pry us from the hell we've chosen.

My whole body is chilled through by the constant dampness of our new homeworld. Miserable hunk of rock. Maybe Anders would have been better off on the old Caprica. At least there he wouldn't have died flat on his back from some stupid bug that we should be able to fix.

"What do you want?" My once best friend says in a voice as cold as space.

I push my words past the lump in my throat I recognize as pride. "I need a favor."

"Is that right?"

Bastard. He's going to make me beg. "I hear that you're…uh…hoarding a bunch of antibiotics for the pilots."

"Where did you hear that?"

Where does he think? A little birdie told me. A drunk little birdy with a wife that most likely ate her chicks alive. Watch the sarcasm Starbuck. Did I want to destroy Anders' last chance? I take a breath. Say it straight. So what if Lee hates me. Hate is a bond. Hate is history, and history means something. Maybe that's enough. "Anders is sick. He has pneumonia, Lee. I think he might die."

How many times have I stood back to the wall eye to eye with death? It's so much easier when it's only you. I don't lie to myself. When I signed up to pilot a viper, I prepaid for that cockpit with my life. But Sam Anders didn't. Since the moment I met him, he's been in way too far over his head. Treading water against the tide. How could I let my pride keep me from saving that? Saving him.

"Commander." I hear Dualla's worried voice in the background of the com signal.

"Wait." He tells me. Then he says to his lover, "Yeah, lieutenant. What is it?"

I know at that moment I waited too long.

It's almost a relief when the Cylons land. Centurians march past us in perfect time, a well oiled parade that only fills the audience with fear. And hate.

A long, long time ago, I told Anders I'd be back for him. I told him I'd get him off Caprica. Away from a futile fight against a relentless enemy none of us could beat. I promised myself I would rescue both of us from hell.

I gave my word, and damn all of them and all their hells if the gods think I'm not keeping it.

Tyrol asks me, "What do you want to do now Captain?"

"The same thing we always do. Fight them until we can't."


	3. On Lust

**Seven Sins:** "Part 3: On Lust"

**Pairings**: Starbuck/Apollo

**Rating**: M

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Battlestar Galactica or any of the characters. This is a work of fiction, just for fun. Any resemblance to people real (but not imagined) is unintentional.

**Idea**: Series of (possibly before I die) seven vignettes following Starbuck through the series.

* * *

That night on New Caprica, I want to say I don't remember leaving Sam at the party. I want to say that when I woke up naked next to Lee on the land where Sam and I had planned to build our home, I have no memory of how I got there.

But I remember every word. Every movement. Every touch.

I want to say it was just sex. The heat of too much ambrosia and the needs of our bodies.

Lee's lips press against mine. The feeling shocks me, like the last time, when he thought I'd come back from the dead. His hands slide under my shirt; mine run over his shoulders and push his jacket to the ground. We're falling together, but it's not falling, falling is too passive for this thing between us. I rip his pants open. Yank them off. Run my lips gently, too gently, up his thighs.

What the frak are you doing, Kara?

I told him before, there's nothing in here. Nothing but a worthless frak up even her own mother didn't love.

I'm on top of him. He thrusts up into me. His palms cup my breasts; his thumbnails run the underside of my nipples. My hair is so long it tickles my back and neck. It falls over my face, sweat damp and diffuse. I want him. This. This moment where the future and past disappear and everything focuses.

I tell myself it's the ambrosia that puts this feeling in me. Nothing else. There can't be. The last Adama I felt something for died, and it was my fault.

When I climax, Lee's name hovers on my lips.

Sweat soaked in the chill wind, I roll to his side. "Well, this makes things…more complicated."

He touches my face with his fingers. When he looks at me, I see my faults in his eyes. He loves me not in spite of them, but through them. My best friend. My lover?

He leaps to his feet, spreads his naked arms and shouts, "I love Kara Thrace."

He screams it again. And again. He won't shut up until I say it too.

More than anything, I want to skip this part. I want to tell him I don't love him. There's nothing here. But I can't lie. I love him. I love him so hard, it hurts me to look at him. It rips me open to say the words out loud.

Only this once, because we're naked together in this darkness. Only because of the alcohol buzzing beneath my skin.

"I…"

Start again. "I…"

Lee stares at me. He wants so much. I want to give it to him.

The third time, I scream, "I love Lee Adama!"

I can love him, if I don't think about what that means.

Morning comes. First touch of dawn on the horizon. I wake, my head on his chest. A stone digs into my hip. I have to pee. The ambrosia has passed, and with it my excuses.

Fear constricts like hard vacuum. I run my fingers over across the scar on Lee's chest where I shot him. In the light of day, the webbed pattern reads like a map of our future. I remember his blood on my hands. The betrayal on his face.

I remember Zach.

I lift myself from his side. Gather my clothes. Hope against hope he'll stay asleep.

It was the alcohol, I tell myself. Just sex. There's nothing here.

Nothing.

I am still running.


	4. On Gluttony

**Seven Sins:** "Part 4: On Gluttony"

**Pairings**: Starbuck/Apollo, Starbuck/Leoben

**Rating**: M

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Battlestar Galactica or any of the characters. This is a work of fiction, just for fun. Any resemblance to people real (but not imagined) is unintentional.

**Idea**: Series of (possibly before I die) seven vignettes following Starbuck through the series.

* * *

Every night, Leoben cooks me dinner. He hums as he puts the meat into the oven. Sings off-key as he drops vegetables in the pot. Sometimes he bakes. The smells waft towards me, and my stomach growls. His baking reminds me of Aunt Giulia, when she came to my mother's house and made us cookies. At those times, my mother pretended to be kind, and I pretended to be obedient. Leoben's baking brings tears to my eyes. He looks over the oven and gives me a lover's smile. I hide the knife. If I am lucky, I'll be able to kill him before dessert.

At the dining room table, he places the plate in front of me and says, "I love you, Kara Thrace."

We are a parody of a domestic bliss I've never had, never understood, and only briefly wanted.

Whenever Leoben tries to frak me, I kill him. I've killed him three times in bed. Once with the dinner knife. Once with the lamp. Once with the bedsheets. He always comes back, but after the third death, he keeps his dick to himself.

Sometimes at night, when I cry, he holds me. He doesn't speak. I crave the touch so strongly, I can't even want to kill him, and that makes me hate myself even more.

When he brings the child, I'm certain he has broken me. There is an emotion purer than hate. Stronger than fear. More certain than love. I don't have a name for it, but I feel it; I am lost.

That night, Leoben bakes. The child smiles and claps her hands. I feed her cookies. I make her eat them until she cries and throws up all over the table.

"Isn't that a bit much, Kara," Leoben says, rubbing the crying child's shoulder.

"I just want her to be happy," I say.

The child sobs and hugs Leoben's stomach. I pull her away. She squirms, but I can't let her go.

At bedtime, the child and I climb the stairs. We lay down on the cement ground, her head pillowed on my arm. Through the halo of her blond hair, I stare at the bars of our cage. I hum dirty limerics until she falls asleep. The music of her snores lulls me to sleep. Sometimes before dawn, Leoben joins us. I wake in his warm embrace and whisper Lee's name.

"I love you, Kara Thrace." His fingers brush the hair at my neck.

The next afternoon, the child breaks her arm. After the doctors set it, I hold her hand. Leoben stands over us. We are a family.


End file.
